Labels and tags are a to-do app basic. They allow you to add extra information and categorization to any task. 

In Marvin, labels are a strategy, so make sure the strategy is turned on if you want to use labels/tags for your tasks and projects. You can turn it on by going to ☰ 🡒 Strategies.

Labels can be added to tasks and projects.

You can quickly add a label to a task or project by adding it to the title with the @ shortcut. Like this:

​"Tweet out new tool @QuickWin"

After pressing enter to commit the title edit, the @QuickWin will get turned into a label that appears underneath the title.

If the label does not exist yet (is not used anywhere else yet) it will create the new label for you.

Alternatively, you can also add labels via the edit icon (cog).

To remove a label go to the edit dialog (via the edit icon that looks like a cog on the right) and then click the little x on the label.

You can also do this by clicking on the label as that will bring up the "Set labels" dialog where you can remove or add new labels.

To see all the labels that are currently in use, go to the strategy card, open it (by clicking it) and then go to "settings". 

There you will see a list of all labels you have created.
You can delete them here and they will get removed from all the tasks and projects.

To change the color of your labels, click on the dot on the left of the label in the strategy settings. It will change the color and the icon of the label everywhere.

You can choose to have your labels show up as colored text underneath the task/project title or as a colored tag. 

To show them as tags, click on the "Show labels as colored tags..." checkbox under Additional Settings which you can find in the strategy settings

Here's how it looks when that option is disabled:

And here when labels are shown as tags:

You can also choose to display just the label icon:

If you have a task with a label in your day view and want to quickly only see tasks with that label in your day, hold shift and click on the label to create a filter with that label.

Label groups can be useful for organizing labels that you use in a similar way.

An example for this is a label group used in the "Marvin GTD" workflow methodology where you can add a label depending on how much energy it takes to complete a task. Some other examples include location based labels that can come in handy if you often complete tasks in multiple locations or creating a label group with the names of people you work with.

Another example of this is using a label group to set up a Kanban board.

Using the exclusive label group option allows you to easily change labels easily by moving them from one section to another. This also means that one task/project can have only one label from the group. To change the label by moving an item between sections you first need to group your list by that label group:

And then you can move tasks between sections to change their label:

The difference between an action label and a normal label is that when you add it to a task and click on it, Marvin will create a new task that will be automatically marked as done and the label will be removed from the task.

To create an action label, head over to ☰ → Strategies → Labels (tags), choose the label you want to turn into an action label, and click on the cog/edit button. After that tick the "Action label" checkbox.

Imagine you're assigned to write a paper about something, so you decide to split that process into 4 steps. First, you're going to research the topic and read some papers, then you want to write the paper and revise it and publish it when it looks fine. You can create a non-exclusive label group with "Research", "Write", "Revise", and "Publish" labels

After creating these, you can create a task with the paper name and add all these labels to it. Using autocomplete @Assignments:all, Marvin will add all these labels to a task at once.

Then once you finish researching the topic, you can click on the "Research" label which will create a new, completed task called "Research - Paper name".

Another scenario where you can use action labels is for tasks that you started but didn't finish. For example, you need to schedule a meeting with someone so after you email them you click on the "email" action label, and when they reply and you confirm the time, you check off the task.

You can also use action labels for when you have a task that you need to do multiple times, with slight variations. For example, you can create a task "Send email" and add labels for all people you need to email.